NCBA Affirms Opposition to Government Mandates
The National Cattlemens Beef Association’s board of directors Thursday approved interim policy that would remove any doubt about the association’s distaste for having the government regulate “cattle producers’ freedom of choice to conduct their own business and utilize their own marketing programs.”
That would put NCBA in line with the American Farm Bureau Federation in asking that Congress strip mandated levels of cash trade from the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act pending in the Senate.
The policy left the association room to support other aspects of the bill which would attempt to add transparency into how the prices for formula-contracted cattle are negotiated. NCBA has wrestled with the issue of price discovery for years as more and more cattle were moved from cash trade to forward contracts. The issue came to a head during the drastic increase in packer margins during the pandemic.
Last year the group adopted policy demanding more transparency and setting up a voluntary program to get more cattle feeders to forego contracts and sell cattle on cash bids. The new policy reflects concerns about how government mandates might impact value added programs that rely on intra-chain cooperation.
However, several NCBA state affiliates opposed the change and senators from those states may go with the local sentiment. Most notably, lead author Charles Grassley of Iowa told reporters last week that family farmers in his state support mandates and that’s who he represents.
